For Love Of Country

Style aficionado, TV personality and tree-changer Neale Whitaker is looking forward to hosting Christmas in his freshly renovated home.

- Elizabeth Wilson

Christmas Day this year will be a quiet country affair for television personality Neale Whitaker and his partner David Novak-Piper. “The day will almost certainly start with a good walk along the beach or, if we’re feeling energetic, a hike,” says Neale. “That will be followed by a long, late and exceptionally lazy lunch with friends.”

And when they sit down to lunch, they’ll no doubt drink in the beauty of their backdrop: a lush valley near the village of Berry, on the NSW South Coast, where Neale and David relocated from Sydney 15 months ago. After 10 years of holidaying in rental properties in this blessed location – two hours’ drive south of Sydney and a mere 10 minutes from famed Seven Mile Beach – the couple took the plunge and bought a farmhouse of their own last year. While they retained a city bolthole, this is now their main home.

“We’d told a couple of local estate agents that if a suitable house ever came up we’d be interested – but we were very specific about location,” says Neale. “We had it narrowed down to just one road. Not surprisingly, there was very little available, but the stars and planets aligned last year. The right property came up at the right price, in the right location, and we jumped at it.”